


Jane’s First Christmas

by mistyaiya



Category: AoJE, Jane Eyre - All Media Types, The Autobiography of Jane Eyre
Genre: Christmas, F/M, Family
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-13
Updated: 2015-01-13
Packaged: 2018-03-07 11:57:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,492
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3173162
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mistyaiya/pseuds/mistyaiya
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's Christmas Eve 2014, and Jane finds herself pondering her relationship with Rochester</p>
            </blockquote>





	Jane’s First Christmas

**Author's Note:**

> Previously published on Tumblr.

_Jane, will you marry me?_

“No.”

_Will you move in with me?_

“No.”

_Will you watch a movie with me on Saturday night?_

“Yes”

Every conversation they had had over the past six or 7 months had contained some variant of this.  She didn’t know if he was purposely waiting until she had to rush out the door to a meeting to ask her what was probably the most important question she’d ever have to answer.  She strongly suspected he was, hoping to catch her off guard, and into revealing what she really thought and felt.  And let’s face it, he didn’t exactly have the greatest track record in how he went about this kind of thing.

Her answers were always the same; yes to time together, no to any stated permanency.  The problem was he was beginning vary the questions more: “Will you marry me?” became “When will you marry me?” or “Why won’t you marry me now?”  It amused her sometimes that he still assumed it was just a matter of time.

It was Christmas Eve, and she was sitting in her little cramped office in her little cramped apartment.  Ostensibly she was checking e-mails and returning calls to investors (let’s face it, $3 million would only go so far in the long run), but really she was daydreaming.  It was nothing definitive, just flashing abstract and romanticized Christmas images, some from her life, some from books or the internet; nothing stuck, just a subtle but building sense of unease, a quite nagging that something was wrong, or could be wrong, or would be wrong.  Something somewhere was buried and trying to crawl out of the quicksand.

Her phone beeped; he’d sent her a text.

_Adele wants to watch “The Sound of Music” tonight.  Want to join us?_

She didn’t even know why he was asking, she spent more time in his and Adele’s apartment than her own, and besides she was having lunch with him in an hour!  But then he asked a lot of questions now, and not just the life altering ones; his already stifled self-assurance was gradually being more and more diluted with doubt.  He’d ask if she was cold, too warm, comfortable, hungry, thirsty, and once he even asked if she wanted the window closed in the room down the hall and if it was alright that he didn’t really understand the appeal of mason jars.

“Of course, Adele and I are supposed to be making cookies tonight anyway.”

_Great!  I love you!_

“I love you too.”

She managed to get some actual work done after that.  At a quarter to one, she shut down her computer, grabbed her coat and bag, and headed to her lunch date.  As she hurried down the street, wind biting at her exposed cheeks, something jumped out of the corner of her eye.  A small chapel had seemingly popped up, squashed between two buildings, almost literally – the façade seemed to be bulging somehow, pulsing, almost glowing, humming.  She shook her head and turned it forward, she was already running late.

He was sitting at a table by the window, and jumped up the second he saw her.  He was too quick, and wobbled a bit.  His leg, though long out of plaster, still ached and twinged, but he had righted himself fully by the time she reached him.

“Are you alright?”

“I’m perfect, Jane,” he smiled.  A beat, and Jane smirked shyly.  “Still on for tonight?”

“Yes, of course!  I haven’t changed my mind in an hour.”

He silently handed her a menu.

“Want are you having?”  Though she was reading, and sounded far away, it was definite, and in mo way vague.

He was silent for a moment, then blurted: “Have you changed your mind about anything else I’ve been asking?”

She took a mental breath, and her eyes darted up.

“I…” she hesitated, “I don’t want to be answerable to anyone but myself.”

“I don’t understand, Jane.”

“I don’t want to marry you and be answerable to anyone but myself.”  She stared hard at the menu, the words darted about on the page.

“I still don’t get this.”  His voice had risen slightly, and she looked around.

He lowered his pitch.  “You’re not Adele’s nanny anymore, or mine,” he smirked.  “How would you be answerable to anyone if you married me?”

She glanced up briefly, then looked back down and out the window.

“Do you not trust me?” he whispered.

A queasiness ran up from the pit of her stomach to her throat.

“No.” 

*** 

She sat on a pew in the middle in the small chapel.  It was surprisingly spacious inside, the aisle seeming to stretch on forever before meeting the small, low alter.  It smelt spicy somehow, she assumed it was incense; and it was combining with the pine scent flowing from evergreens draped around, seemingly on any surface that could hold it.

Jane loved Christmas, it was home; it had been the only time of the year when Mrs Reed had been a halfway decent person.  She had always had a lot of chores to do, but at Christmas it hadn’t felt like work, it had felt like preparing, for something special, for being together and being loved.  The fact that on Christmas morning her aunt would usually confiscate her already rather meagre presents for increasingly inane reasons, and at dinner John would kick her under the table rarely figured when she thought of Christmas.  What she had held onto was the preparation, the anticipation of the beginning.

Now though, it felt as if Christmas were the end of something, that she should be reflecting on something that was passing away from her.  Last Christmas had been amazing, but it was false.  Then this year she had gone from perfect happiness, a proper family, love, protection, nurture and nurturing, to the lowest of an already stilted, stifled life.  Then perfect happiness again.  Supposedly.  She had been happy in May, she knew she was still happy now.  But can happiness be the same after such a blow as she had received.  She knew it was a cliché, but it was the end of the innocence.  It wasn’t disaffection, it wasn’t that bleak.  But in the months she was with the Rivers she had finally seen her life, seen what she wanted, seen herself, and she had done that without him.

Her phone beeped, she really should have muted it.  She looked around guiltily but didn’t see anyone.  It was a message from John.

“Happy Christmas cuz! Keeping awesome?  Will call tomorrow around three. J”

John, that was a good thing that happened.  They talked a lot now, at least once a week, she’d even visited him once.   _He_  had wanted to come, but she didn’t think it was appropriate, and he was still pretty sick.  And she wanted to keep it her thing, it had happened after their reunion, but she had changed.  That’s why she stopped her videos, quit Tumblr.  She had always been private, but she didn’t need to show that she was private to feel like herself anymore.  She didn’t even know if that made sense, but she did know that all she need at the end of it all was herself.

They were all having dinner together tomorrow, Diana and Mary, Adele, even Grace, and  _him_.  She loved him, she knew that she did.  But she still felt betrayed, invaded almost.  He’d lied, and a family’s ten-year legacy of hurt and pain and secrets had come into her life, and taken her in.

A family.  Her family.   They were now, she knew that.  For better or for worse.  Family was an extension of you, they were a base.  She glanced down at her phone again.  If she could forgive John, and she had, could she forgive him? 

*** 

She let herself into the apartment quietly.  She could hear Adele watching _Miracle on 34 th Street_ in the living room.  The chapel had been empty when she’d entered and empty when she’d left.

She walked in the kitchen.  He was sitting at the counter; she knew he’d be there drinking lemon tea.  He was stirring it around slowly and abstractedly.  He glanced up suddenly and straightened, tensed, his entire body language changed, and he bolted up.

“Jane?  I didn’t think you’d come, I told Adele you had to work.”  She narrowed her eyes slightly.  “But I should have known…”

“I’d never do that again… And you’d never do… I love Christmas, but it always… it makes me question the past, it should, and it will now.”

He looked puzzled.

“It doesn’t matter.  I don’t know… but next week when Adele’s gone on her trip, we need to talk… about things, the future… combining… bookcases, Roch… Edward” she beamed.  She walked towards him, took his hand, and walked him towards the living room.

The confusion slowly lifted, “Adele, here’s Jane!”

This was Jane’s first Christmas.


End file.
